I'm guessing the spammers haven't knocked the site off line deliberately so that they could spam it?

I'd doubt it - spammer logic is that they want their spam to be seen far and wide as possible, and inactive sites draw less traffic than active ones. (Besides, they're robots coded for one specific thing - I doubt their machine learning, if they've got any at all, extends to taking down small websites!).

ivohenry wrote:

I can review as guest - and get email updates on a "favourite"

I think some of us can do things others can't - very odd!

Guest commenting is a regular part of the site and unlikely to be affected by the user privilege glitch occurring... it could be people not seeing the security code or some form of IP blocking because spam has used those addresses before. (Maybe even a browser glitch of some sort. Or possibly human assumption of some kind )

I've not seen any letters in the SDL codes yet, so I expect they're always just numbers there. (plus you can go back with the code changed but your old comment still there, as I did once when one of my key presses didn't go through. My keyboard needs a clean out...)

I tried to log in and got 'access denied'. However I've checked a couple of the areas out.Authors - seems okHouses - you seem to be able to read the stories.Members - now that looks like it's been hacked big time! Whatever letter you click on, there's a list of letters and numbers. Click on one, and it's all foreign with some English and the person seems to have joined recently!To quote someone (can't remember who) " I think we've been got at, mes amies!" :

A lot of those names have been there a while so that's not a new problemw, and real members are still there among the others.

When the problem occurred a couple of months ago Liss said The web-hosting company was alerted to some odd activity relating to sending emails from the site, and changed access permissions. So presumably the same thing has happened again

I'm being absolutely plagued by "reviews" which are adverts for sportswear. I was always the useless kid whom absolutely no-one wanted on their team for anything sporty, so they've picked the wrong person .

I'm being absolutely plagued by "reviews" which are adverts for sportswear. I was always the useless kid whom absolutely no-one wanted on their team for anything sporty, so they've picked the wrong person .

Same here, Alison! The spam has never stopped, despite we members not being able to access the site. And like you, I was never sporty!!

_________________ "It takes a long time to live what you learn." May Sarton

Thanks, Mia. However long it takes, it will be worth it if it gets rid of our spammer friends - I woke up this morning to find e-mails about yet another 3 spam reviews about sports gear cluttering up my inbox!!

As an upside though, I've enjoyed finding other fiction spaces, like An Archive of Our Own which has some excellent Antonia Forest stories and LGM which I'd sadly neglected for ages. Also I've had no excuse but to get on with my exam revision